From 18th to 20th May, 2016 the principal Igor Kos and three teachers from Electromechanical school visited Sweden to participate in the final meeting of the Erasmus+ project "Teenager today, European citizen tomorrow". The project consisted of ten activities through which the students from partner schools from Sweden, France, Cyprus and Croatia discovered the similarities and differences of living in different areas of the European Union. The results of all activities were uploaded to the project website www.ttect.com. The final meeting was hosted by Källängens school, which located on the beautiful island of Lidingö where people are very much involved in sports. One of the fascinating facts about Lidingö is the WALKING BUS – a parent collects the children from the neighbourhood and takes them to school located up to several kilometres away.

The project website will also be active after the completion of this project, as it aims to expand network data on similarities and differences in the lives of young people in the EU.

The teachers from all four partner school met once again at a transnational meeting, this time in France. The meeting was held at the French partner school, which is located in L'Arbresle, near Lyon.

The two teachers who represented the Croatian team at the meeting were Miroslav Smuđ and Valentina Bračko. They arrived to L'Arbresle on the 27th of January and were warmly greeted by the French hosts. The Swedish and Cypriot team joined them at the welcoming dinner, where all the teachers had a chance to get to know each other better and compare teaching experiences in different countries.

According to TT-ECT project plan, the coordinators and teachers of partner schools met in order to analyze actions implemented from the beginning of the project, present the results, and create a plan to continue the project.

We were warmly welcomed by the hosts at their school and in their town. Kokkinotrimithia is a town located 20 kilometers from the capital of Cyprus, Nicosia. The town is situated in the central part of the island, and the climate and environment are very similar to those on our southern islands. Tourism is developed along the coast.

For 40 years, Cyprus has had a problem with the occupation of the northern part of the island by Turkey. Kokkinotrimithia is close to the demarcation zone, where there are UN forces. The capital, Nicosia, is divided by the line of demarcation. The hosts familiarized us with the beauty of the capital city and the charms of the Cypriot cuisine.

France

After we've seen the movie from France, we were wondering if this was a common situation in French schools, or if it was an exception. What caught our eye was that the kids seemed to be very aggressive and disrespectful towards the teachers, who were trying to help them overcome their financial and social problems in order to get a better education. There are some similarities between French schools and schools in Croatia because in our schools you can also encounter students who act the same way, being arrogant and disrespectful. Seeing the movie made us think about what we can do to help these students and get them on the right path, since they also affect other students by their behavior. Another similarity we noticed was that the architecture, the school interior and the climate are very much alike in France and Croatia. However, there are some differences between the situation in the movie and Croatian schools. For instance, in France there are a lot of ethnical groups which can get into conflict with other groups because of their opinions and beliefs, and that is not very common in Croatia. Finally, there are some questions we would like to ask about the movie: How do you handle these situations? How are you planning to solve this problem? Are there any communication problems between students due to different ethnicities? All in all, the movie was different than the other movies we received and it was very thought-provoking.

The film was shot in the school studio, and along with the movie, a presentation and interviews with three students were made. Under the guidance of their teachers, the students made the film, interview with students and presentation of the Republic of Croatia and Varazdin. The students translated the film, which was filmed in Croatian, and made subtitles in English. The idea was that students from the school partners hear Croatian language in our first contact. We exchanged the films at the meeting in Varazdin movies, except for French partners who sent their film later. As a part of the first activity, we organized watching the films from partner countries. During December 2014, the school organized watching the films from Cyprus and Sweden. The films were watched by forty students who wrote down their comments and observations. The comments referred to the similarities and differences in the lives of young people, school, and environment. The teachers reviewed the students’ comments and in January 2015, 8 selected students reviewed all the comments and composed a report in an agreed form for the partner schools. The film from French partner school was watched in February 2015 due to delay in receiving their film. After watching the film, selected students read the comments and made common comments of Croatian students. The comments we sent to students in the partner countries. The last feedback, comments on our movie and materials were received on the 16th March 2015, and we organized a common analysis of obtained comments for the students at our school. This is the beginning of student cooperation, and we will define the manner and intensity of student communication at the meeting in Nicosia in May 2015.

The first transnational project meeting was held from 1st to 3nd December 2014 in Varazdin, instead, as planned, in September. The meeting was attended by 13 representatives from partner schools: two representatives from Sweden, the project coordinator; three from France; two from Cyprus; and six members from the Croatian school.

1st and 3rd December were planned for the journey, and 2nd December for activities according to the work plan. At the beginning of the meeting we presented the schools. We then discussed the signed contracts, and financial resources. We pointed out the problem as all the funds were intended for transnational meetings, and the funds for the planned mobility of students were included in the French partners’ contract. It was agreed that the project coordinator from Sweden and partners from France contact their NA about this problem. We received the reply that the transfer of funds between countries is not possible, and we will discuss the details of how to realize all project objectives at the second transnational meeting.